Wednesday 24 June 2026, 12:00 – 13:00 CEST | Palais des Nations, Geneva, Concordia 1
Summary Report
Click here to download a PDF of this report (English)
On June 24, 2026, WIMN co-sponsored a side event on the Gendered Impacts of Externalization during the UN Human Rights Council 62nd Session at the Palais des Nations, Geneva. This side event was co-organized by UN Women and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants. Other co-sponsors included Switzerland, Colombia, OHCHR, and International Detention Coalition (IDC).
Within the analysis of the gendered impacts of migration externalization, panelists fostered conversations about the safeguards necessary to protect the dignity and rights of migrant women, and individuals of diverse sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics. Speakers at the side event included Gehad Madi, UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants; Inkeri von Hase, UN Women; Michele Levoy, Women in Migration Network (WIMN); Carolina Gottardo, International Detention Coalition (IDC); and Guillermo Ricaldi, Advocacy Specialist at International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA World).
Michele Levoy, WIMN board member and Director of PICUM, the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, detailed the ways in which externalization migratory mechanisms force women into vulnerable positions on perilous routes and smugglers, increasing their exposure to human trafficking. Additionally, such externalizing systems heighten the risk of forced family separations, medicalization of refugee women’s bodies, and sexual violence as well as the impunity of such violations.
“Externalization models systematically undermine obligations of protection, exposing women and SOGIESC populations to sexual abuse and gender-based violence with impunity,” Levoy said as she urged for gender-responsive human rights impact assessments prior to any renewal or finalization of an externalization agreement and total transparency and independent oversight of all externalization agreements.
Levoy demanded that there be access to justice, so that migrants are guaranteed accessible and safe reporting mechanisms designed for women, girls, and gender-diverse populations impacted by externalized detention, processing, or returns. Additionally, she called states to invest in alternative human rights-based migration governance, such as community-based protection systems, alternatives to detention, and regularized pathways for those with intersecting vulnerabilities.
Finally, Levoy’s intervention insisted on the need for consistent, trauma-informed, gender-sensitive training for all professionals related to migration, whether it be border agents, contractors, or third-country officials working under externalization arrangements.
This event came following a series of efforts undertaken by WIMN to highlight the risks associated with externalization policies. Notably, in October 2025, WIMN co-organized a side-event on the Gendered Impacts of Externalization: Safeguarding the Rights of Migrant Women, Girls, and Gender-Diverse Persons, with UN Women and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants during the UN General Assembly’s 80th Session. This event was co-sponsored by OHCHR, the UN Mission of Mexico, ACT Alliance, and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), and platformed the testimonies of Macarena Moraga and Nadia Lucero of New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE); Hannah Jambunathan of IDC; Patsili Toledo Vásquez, a member of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW); Karol Arambula of ACT Alliance; and Anna Talbot of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law.
The panelists agreed conclusively that externalization creates environments that are high risk in human rights violations, and that such risk disproportionately targets women, girls, and gender diverse populations. Gehad Madi, UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, issued the central argument that migration externalization is fundamentally designed to uphold the current global paradigm of inequality. Madi argued that people must recognize that externalizing states are “developed” countries, while the third states are “underdeveloped” for a reason; after all, this occurrence constitutes yet another method for destination states to remove themselves from the responsibility of migration governance and imposes such duties onto other states to evade accountability and the obligations that accompany international protection.
Since then, WIMN continued the efforts to end externalization, and to prioritize protection over deterrence. In the second International Migration Review Forum this past May 2026, WIMN successfully secured crucial feminist and intersectional language in negotiations and disseminated WIMN’s Spotlight Report on Global Migration and Feminist Manifesto for Structural Transformation in Migration Governance to demand human rights-based, intersectional, and accountable migration policies directly rooted in gender justice and migrant leadership.
WIMN’s stance on externalization migration policy is clear: externalization plays to paradigms of global inequality and disproportionately endangers women, girls, and identifying persons of diverse SOGIESC. WIMN will continue to advocate for the ending of externalization schemes and to guarantee migrants’ access to justice, safety, and dignity as opposed to policies for deterrence.
